Theresa May hits back after Boris blasts ‘biggest housing shortage’ | Politics | News – UK

The former Foreign Secretary called for “absurdly high” stamp duty to be cut, action to stop major construction firms sitting on land they could build on, to keep prices high, and fewer constraints on new developments.

The call in his weekly newspaper column – published as Mrs May launched her own plans to tackle homelessness – was seen as evidence of his desire to start mapping out a policy “manifesto” in support of a future Tory leadership bid.

His article made no mention of the row he kick-started a week ago by saying women in Muslim face-coverings looked like letter boxes and bank robbers.

The Prime Minister’s official spokesman hit back: “When it comes to stamp duty, the Government has taken action to seek to help first-time buyers to get on the property ladder.

The former Foreign Secretary called for “absurdly high” stamp duty to be cut, action to stop major construction firms sitting on land they could build on, to keep prices high, and fewer constraints on new developments.

The call in his weekly newspaper column – published as Mrs May launched her own plans to tackle homelessness – was seen as evidence of his desire to start mapping out a policy “manifesto” in support of a future Tory leadership bid.

His article made no mention of the row he kick-started a week ago by saying women in Muslim face-coverings looked like letter boxes and bank robbers.

The Prime Minister’s official spokesman hit back: “When it comes to stamp duty, the Government has taken action to seek to help first-time buyers to get on the property ladder.

“The number of people who have benefited from that cut in stamp duty is now 121,500 first-time buyers who have saved an average of £1,700 each so far.

“The Prime Minister has said that we need to be building more homes in this country and that is a priority for the Government and we are taking a number of steps to deliver that.”

Mr Johnson wrote that Britain’s housing shortage was “the biggest and most urgent crisis we face”.

He complained that house-buyers were sometimes treated with “disdain … like serfs” by the “big three” developers who now dominated the market.

He had seen evidence of poor quality building that one company had refused to remedy, including one where a live cat had been plastered into a wall.

He also accused the major builders of “blatantly landbanking to keep prices high”, by sitting on land they have about half a million unused permissions to build on.

The public sector needed to release its surplus land and brownfield sites should be “liberated” across the country, linked by new transport projects he said were “crying out to be done”, including Crossrail Two “which has a far better business case” than the Government-backed HS2 north-south high speed rail line.

Meanwhile, London’s housing market, which Mr Johnson said drives the rest of the country, must be “kickstarted .. by cutting absurdly high stamp duty” which “froze” purchases by deterring people from trading up, leaving older people trapped in big houses that younger families needed.

“Lefities” like Labour London mayor Sadiq Khan should stop their “ideological obsession” with requiring new developments to include a set quota of affordable homes, he went on.

When he was London Mayor, more homes of all kinds were built because no such constraints were imposed, he said.

Mr Johnson declared the housing market “broken” because under-supply made homes unaffordable.

“This is meant to be Britain, the great home-owning democracy, but we now have lower rates of owner-occupation for the under-40s than France and Germany,” he protested.

“That is a disgrace. And you cannot expect young people to be automatically sympathetic to capitalism when they find it so tough to acquire capital.”

Fellow Tory Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg has also weighed in on the issue, fuelling speculation about a potential leadership pact with Mr Johnson.

He was revealed to have told a Financial Times politics podcast that housing was the country’s biggest challenge and his party must accept more building on green field and green belt sites, as not all were areas of “outstanding natural beauty”.

Mr Johnson still faces a possible full inquiry by his party into complaints about his remarks on burkas, which he made while arguing Britain should not ban the garment.

He has so far refused to bow to party chairman Brandon Lewis’s call for an apology.

Many Conservatives have been incensed by the threat to discipline the popular MP.

But the Muslim Council of Britain on Monday warned the Tories not to allow “any whitewashing” of the inquiry.

“Noone should be allowed to victimise minorities with impunity,” it declared.

The Tell Mama project which monitors anti-Muslim violence says abuse of women wearing Muslim head-dress has increased since Mr Johnson published his article.

Mrs May’s spokesman said he had nothing to add to the PM’s comments last week, in which she said women should be allowed to wear what they wanted, that Mr Johnson’s language had “offended people” and that she agreed with Mr Lewis.

It is claimed Downing Street was caught unawares by Mr Lewis’s demand for a Johnson apology and feel the chairman went too far in responding to a row that would otherwise have blown over quickly.

Writing to Mrs May, the Muslim Council of Britain urged her to show “leadership” and establish an “independent and transparent inquiry” into Islamophobia within her party and more broadly in society.

MCB secretary general Harun Khan wrote: “Rather than see the bigotry for what it is, we are shocked that a large number of Conservative MPs would seek to back Mr Johnson for his dehumanising comments, ones that mimicked far-right memes and attacked Muslim women.”